Webinars are becoming increasingly popular and the trend looks set to continue. One of the big reasons why webinars have become so popular is, of course, Covid-19, which has forced most companies to think in new ways. As it was not possible to hold physical seminars with a larger number of participants due to the restrictions imposed. In addition, more and more people are working from home which makes webinars even more relevant.In this blog post, we will focus on webinar systems and webinar tools available and go through what you should consider when holding your first webinar.
What is a webinar?
For those who have not been to a webinar and those who do not know what it is, we will first quickly go through it. A webinar is just like a seminar but on the web instead of in person. It is the same procedure as a seminar where the organiser of the webinar often gives a presentation or lecture where most of the participants listen in. It is similar to a web meeting, but without being able to see all the participants. Participants can usually ask questions and comment through a chat.
How do I hold a webinar?
- First of all, you need to develop a presentation or a theme that you want to talk about in your webinar.
- Once you have the theme or presentation ready, the next step is to invite guests to your webinar. This may require some marketing to reach the right participants. There are many strategies and tactics for getting attendees to a webinar, but sending personal invitations via email to your customer base and potential prospects often works well. Social media can also be a great channel to reach people who may not be on your customer register.
- Once you have received participants, the webinar itself will be held. This can be done in many different ways and often it becomes a question of budget and what resources are already in place. It is possible to hold a simple webinar where all you need is your computer where you share the presentation and film yourself. If you want to take it a few steps further, you can get a filmmaker to set up multiple cameras and film you and possibly several presenters live during the webinar, changing angles. It will have a more professional feel but the most important thing is that you do something that suits your audience.
- If you wish, there will also be an opportunity to answer questions either during or after the presentation. The choice is up to you what you find comfortable and what suits the content of the presentation. To keep the focus, it may be beneficial to have a person help read the questions that come into the chat and select the most relevant ones to ask you when the time comes.
- After the webinar is over, it is a good idea to follow up with the participants. Taking feedback on what participants liked and didn't like is useful to make the next webinar even better. Then you may want to follow up with some prospects with an email thanking them for attending and inviting them to discuss the topic further at a meeting or inviting them to a follow-up webinar.
To facilitate many of the above, webinar tools and systems are available to help you keep track of participants, send out invitations, set up links, etc.
How should I choose the best tool to hold a webinar?
As webinars have become a substitute for seminars, the number of providers offering webinar services has grown exponentially. It is therefore not easy to choose the right tool for you. As with everything else, you and your business are unique and there is no one-size-fits-all provider - you need to find something that suits you.The important thing to start with is to think through what you want from the tool. Here are some questions to ask yourself before choosing and evaluating your choice of tool.
- How many participants will attend my webinar?
- Will participants be able to interact with me during the webinar?
- Do I need help managing invitations, reminders and follow-up of participants?
- Would you like to conduct surveys or questions during the webinar?
- How long should your webinar be?
- Do you need Call To Actions in the webinar?
Once you've answered the above questions, it's time to look for suppliers and compare.
We at Contitude would like to thank Sheryll Chua at Funnelbud who did a quick review of some selected suppliers which you can see in the table below.
* Providers are constantly changing the content of their packages and therefore this table may be out of date by the time you read this. However, we do our best to keep it up to date.
Summary
There's more to setting up a webinar than meets the eye, which is why there are good reasons to use a good and affordable webinar system. There is no one vendor that will suit everyone, so the important thing to take away when looking for webinar systems is to start with what you need. Make a list of things you need before you start looking for suppliers. This will make it easier to make the right decision.
Then stack up the different providers in a table and compare from an objective perspective and you will be successful in choosing a webinar tool.
Would you like advice and help setting up a webinar? At Contitude we help clients with the whole process from marketing to get participants to filming the webinar.
Book a meeting via the link below if you would like help evaluating webinar systems.
Book an appointment and get help evaluating which system is right for you!
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